Help the development of the site, sharing the article with friends!
Basil (Ocimum basilicum) is an aromatic annual plant native to Iran, India, Pakistan and other tropical regions of Asia. It is a widely cultivated plant due to its uses in gastronomy as a dressing in certain foods and, in addition, it provides vitamin A, B vitamins and certain bioelements. It can be grown from seeds or cuttings.
And given all the benefits that we have just explained to you, in this Green Ecology article we want to explain and talk to you about the cultivation of basil and the potted basil care.
How and when to sow basil
The first thing to sow basil is to buy a envelope of seeds or cuttings (if we do not have saved from other years). There are varieties of small leaves, large leaves and even purple leaves, a single envelope of seeds will be enough, since basil is a plant that germinates very well and very fast. It is not necessary to sow a single variety, we can even mix them.
The best time to sow it is at late winter or early spring, in order to be able to enjoy this plant during most of the year, since it is an annual plant that die in autumn with the arrival of low temperatures.
The first thing to sow the basil, will be prepare the seedlings. The plant can be sown in a pot, in a planter or on a tray of alveoli. In this case, the pot must have at least 12 centimeters in diameter to prevent the plants from germinating too close together. If we do it, on the other hand, on a tray of alveoli, the size must be at least 3 or 4 centimeters.
For sowing, the most recommended substrate is a substrate for seedlings or indoor plants. We must fill the container without weighing it down and water it abundantly. Sowing consists of depositing the seeds in the seedbed and watering them carefully, preventing the water from displacing or burying them. The distance between the seedlings should be at least two centimeters, to avoid competition for light.
Here you can learn more about how to sow and plant basil.
Basil cultivation
The cultivation of this plant can be done starting from seeds or cuttings. From seeds, the steps are:
- Prepare the seedbeds using moistened vegetable mulch and put one or two seeds per seedbed covering it with the substrate
- Cover the seedbed with plastic wrap so that our soil is kept with adequate humidity and place it next to a window where it receives the sun. It is necessary to maintain a degree of humidity, spraying it with water once or twice a day.
- Once the first leaves appear, we can remove the plastic, but it must continue to be moistened until the plants have developed a few centimeters. At this time we can transplant them to the final plants.
Also, we can grow new basil plants starting from cuttings from other plants. The cuttings are the branches that are born from the main stem. In this case, we would introduce the cuttings in a bowl of water or with a natural rooting agent that we can make, for example, with lentils. When the cuttings have already developed roots, we can transplant them to the final pot. In the following article we explain how to choose the right pot.
Basil plant care
Basil is a plant that requires a high amount of irrigation throughout its cultivation. If it does not have enough water, the plant runs the risk of dehydration and failure to develop. To carry out the irrigation, we must keep the earth always moist but without getting waterlogged. A solution for this is to make some holes in the bottom of the pot to facilitate its drainage. Must be water the plant every day, better in small quantities a couple of times, to prevent the soil from drying out during the hottest period.
It is also recommended shoot stems and pull weeds to aerate and fluff the earth. The topping will be done by cutting the upper stems to encourage more stems to come out and the plant to be more leafy. Since basil is an annual plant that dries up and dies once it has flowered at the end of the cycle, they should be cut the flower buds at the end of the stems and thus delay this moment.
In case we want to keep basil seeds for other years, we can let one of its flowers grow and collect your seeds, towards the end of cultivation.
If you want to read more articles similar to Potted basil care, we recommend that you enter our category of Cultivation and care of plants.
